Chapter Screwed to Sea Deities of S by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

the back of the house was filled with prisoners and set on fire, and Taylor, in his history, written at the time and almost on the spot, puts the number of victims at 184, and he gives the names of several of them.

Sculls (See Diamond ...)

Sculpture Fathers of French sculpture.
   Jean Goujon (1510-1572).
   Germain Pilon (1515-1590).

Scutch The scrapings of hides; also refuse of flax. (English, scotch, to cut; Saxon, sceadan.). We have the word in the expression, “You have scotched the snake, not killed it.”

“About half a mile from the southern outfall are two manufactories, where the refuse from the London tanneries, known as scutch, is operated upon.”- The Times.

Scuttle To scuttle a ship is to bore a hole in it in order to make it sink. Rather strangely, this word is from the same root as our word shut or bolt (Saxon scyttel, a lock, bolt, or bar). It was first applied to a hole in a roof with a door or lid, then to a hatchway in the deck of a ship with a lid, then to a hole in the bottom of a ship plugged up; then comes the verb to pull out the plug, and leave the hole for the admission of water.
   Scuttle (of coals, etc.) is the Anglo-Saxon, scutel, a basket.

“The Bergen [Norway] fishwomen ... in every direction are coming ... with their scuttles swinging on their arms. In Bergen fish is never carried in any other way.”- H. H. Jackson: Glimpses of Three Coasts, pt. iii. p. 235.

Scuttle Out (To). To sneak off quickly, to skedaddle, to cut and run. Anglo-Saxon sceotan, to flee precipitately; scitel, an arrow; sceota, a darting fish, like the trout; scot, an arrow, etc.

Scylla, daughter of Nisus, promised to deliver Megara into the hands of Minos. To redeem this promise she had to cut off a golden hair on her father's head, which she effected while he was asleep. Minos, her lover, despised her for this treachery, and Scylla threw herself from a rock into the sea. At death she was changed into a lark, and Nisus into a hawk. Scylla turned into a rock by Circe “has no connection” with the daughter of Nisus.

“Think of Scylla's fate.
Changed to a bird, and sent to fly in air,
She dearly pays for Nisus' injured hair.”
Pope: Rape of the Lock, iii.

Scylla Glaucus, a fisherman, was in love with Scylla; but Circe, out of jealousy, changed her into a hideous monster, and set dogs and wolves to bark round her incessantly. On this Scylla threw herself into the sea and became a rock. It is said that the rock Scylla somewhat resembles a woman at a distance, and the noise of the waves dashing against it is not unlike the barking of dogs and wolves.

“Glaucus, lost to joy,
Curst in his love by vengeful Circe's hate,
Attending wept his Scylla's hapless fate.”
Camoens: Lusiad, bk. vi.

   Avoiding Scylla, he fell into Charybdis. Trying to avoid one error, he fell into another; or, trying to avoid one danger, he fell into another equally fatal. Scylla and Charybdis are two rocks between Italy and Sicily. In one was a cave where “Scylla dwelt,” and on the other Charybdis dwelt under a fig-tree. Ships which tried to avoid one were often wrecked on the other rock. It was Circe who changed Scylla into a frightful seamonster, and Jupiter who changed Charybdis into a whirlpool.

“When I shun Scylla your father, I fall into Charybdis your mother.”- Shakespeare: Merchant of Venice, iii. 5.

   Between Scylla and Charybdis. Between two difficulties or fatal works.
   To fall from Scylla into Charybdis - out of the frying-pan into the fire.

Scythian or Tartarian Lamb (The). Agnus Scythicus, a kind of fern, called the borametz, or polypodium of Cayenne. It is said to resemble a lamb, and even in some cases to be mistaken for one.

Scythian Defiance When Darius approached Scythia, an ambassador was sent to his tent with a bird, a frog, a mouse, and five arrows, then left without uttering a word. Darius, wondering what was meant, was told by Gobrias it meant this: Either fly away like a bird, and hide your head in a hole like a mouse, or swim across the river, or in five days you will be laid prostrate by the Scythian arrows.